Huge Success for Private Rocket

When we created Red Planet Capital, the NASA office that we worked with was also working on the COTS program to help private rocket companies get off the ground. This past weekend saw another huge success for that program, as SpaceX successfully launched their new Falcon 9 rocket for the first time. The new Falcon has 60% more power than its predecessor – with over a million pounds of thrust – and has the potential of being refurbished and reused. If SpaceX is successful in accomplishing that goal, it will have further reduced the cost of space business.

SpaceX successfully launched a new, upgraded Falcon 9 rocket with 60 percent more powerful engines yesterday. The demonstration flight appeared to go off without a hitch, as the rocket reached a speed of five kilometer/second and an altitude of 310 kilometers within five minutes of launch.

The goal with the spacecraft is to be able to recover the main part of the rocket intact after it falls back to Earth. Currently, SpaceX rockets crash in the ocean in pieces after a boost to orbit, and are not reusable, but the Falcon 9′s boost stage has the ability to either gently splash down or even potentially land on its tail — as the company’s Grasshopper rocket demonstrated in June of this year.